Taiwan IPO releases “Analysis of Trends in Trademark Applications Filed by the Industry from 2017 through 2021”

　The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022 (WIPI 2022) on November 21, 2022 to make public the data of the global filings for trademarks, number of registrations, and application class count per unit of GDP of each country in 2021.  Taiwan IPO released the “Analysis of Trends in Trademark Applications Filed by the Industry from 2017 through 2021” to present a brief analysis and comparison between Taiwan’s data of filings in 2021 and the WIPI 2022 as summarized below.  

　In 2021, despite the fact that Taiwan’s domestic demand had a turndown as the Covid-19 pandemic ran rampant, the number of classes of resident applications still saw a 1.82% growth.  With the pandemic reaching its peak and then slowing down gradually, a slight resilience occurred in the number of classes of non-resident applications filed in Taiwan to form a 1.15% rise as compared with 2020.  

　The class counts of global filings increased strikingly in 2021 almost to 18,150,000 classes.   China had the highest volume of filing activity with a class count of 9.45 million, surpassing the U.S. at the 2nd place with a class count of 899,000, the EU at the 3rd place with a class count of 497,000, India at the 4th place with a class count of 488,000, the UK at the 5th spot with a class count of 450,000.  Japan dropped from the 3rd place to rank 9th with a class count of 364,000, followed by South Korea at the 10th spot, down one place with a class count of 360,000.  Taiwan moved up one notch to No. 17 with a class count of 123,000.  Moreover, Taiwan’s registration class count is around 102,000, ranking also the 17th position worldwide, while Taiwan’s grant rate was 87%, above the global average.  

　In addition, the top four sectors that attracted the biggest proportion of total non-resident filing at Taiwan IPO and of the WIPO statistics are “research and technology”, “health”, “agriculture”, “clothing and accessories”, and “research and technology”, “health”, “clothing and accessories”, “leisure and education”, respectively.  The sector, “research and technology” accounted for around 20% of the non-resident filing in Taiwan and also of the global non-resident filing reported.  Also, the non-resident applications filed for the sector of “research and technology” at the Taiwan IPO apparently outnumber that reported in the WIPO statistics, which demonstrates that non-resident applicants attach significance to their brand development in that sector in Taiwan.  

　Throughout 2021, there had been approximately 14 million trademark applications filed globally that cover and specify 18.1 million of classes, representing a striking rise by 5.5%.  In Taiwan, there had been a total of 95,000 trademark applications filed with the Taiwan IPO to specify over 120,000 classes, ranking 17th worldwide and marking a positive growth for five consecutive years.  (Released 2023.01.13)  
/CCS